I really need to start learning Spanish for personal and professional reasons, so I was excited to see Duolingo in the list for the eighteenth Thing, and downloaded it to try. It did require me to make an account. The interface is pretty straightforward.
It starts out with basic picture/term pairs, like “la manzana” and the picture of an apple, having you pick out the one that matches the English request. Seems pretty basic and reinforcing, yeah? I didn’t feel like I had been given enough practice before I was moved onto the next step, thought it is possible to go back and continue practicing more basic things. I really just need to go to a language class, but once I’ve started that I think this could be handy for practice and review.
The program asks you to pick out pictures, arrange provided words to translate sentences, and eventually try verbally reading or repeating things, the last of which I had trouble with because my tablet (or the program) didn’t seem to be able to make sense of my verbal attempts. Some of the translation also threw things at me that hadn’t been introduced yet and I had to try to figure out, which was also frustrating.
Having studied a few different languages, and been a Linguistics major, I was yet again frustrated that the program started using words and asking me to translate words in terms of gender and declension and conjugation that it hadn’t explained or introduced. It seems kind of discouraging for a beginner. Personally, I’ll maybe revisit this when I’ve had more instruction, and professionally I might make it available for Spanish or other language learners in my school (there are other language options, too).
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